Tag / librarianship

by booksoverlookedblog

Librarianing 101: Keep Calm and Weed On

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My husband once told me, “I love how excited you get over very boring things.” Explaining the intricacies of cataloging books or reading pages of library policy would be boring to most people, but they’re not to me. I can get into unprovoked deep dives on library science and the history of youth literature, because these are things that I care very much about. But when I get going, it turns out that most people also have at least a small amount of interest in the inner workings of a library. Instead of our normal book post today, I want to give everyone a peek behind the desk and talk about one of my favorite “boring” library things: collection development. Specifically, “deselecting” materials from the collection, called weeding. 

C’mon, I know you’re at least a little curious about how we decide to get rid of things. 

But first you need to accept a hard truth: libraries throw away books. Like, a lot of books. I know how bad this sounds. Libraries are supposed to safeguard these tomes and preserve them for the world to enjoy, right? Aren’t books precious gems that need to be saved? 

Excluding things like rare first editions and other historically important books…not really. For the vast majority of books, I think that their true value is what the reader gives them. While I’m not getting rid of anything on my personal bookshelf at home, just yesterday I happily discarded a little over thirty books without a twinge of guilt. 

While this may sound cruel to book lovers, weeding is essential to a healthy library collection. There’s the matter of space, of course: no library can fit every book its users might need. But it’s also a matter of relevance. One of those books I recently discarded was a book about A.I. that was published in 2005. A.I. is a very hot topic right now, and this is technology that will continue to shape our future. But an almost 20 year old book on the topic isn’t relevant anymore. Not only is the information in the book dated, it’s also inaccurate. Misinformation is just as bad as no information, if not worse. Weeding gives library staff an opportunity to assess the collection, and to see what needs to be updated and where gaps are. It’s a critical tool in curating a library collection that best suits the needs of its users. 

I have a love/hate relationship with weeding. Sometimes it feels great, and other times it’s really tough to make the decision of what book stays and which goes. 

How do librarians make that decision? There are a lot of factors involved in deselecting materials, and it’s best to make each decision on a book-by-book basis. 

The first thing I look at are the number of check-outs a book has, and the last time it was checked out. In library terms, we call these “grubby” and “dusty” or “dead” items. 

Grubby items are books and other materials with a lot of check-outs. Popular books that get checked out a lot are going to get worn down through the wear and tear of frequent handling. I’d love to believe that everyone treats their library books with respect and care. However, I’ve seen enough books returned with stains, torn pages, and (on a memorable occasion), live ants, so I know this is not the case. The more times a book has been checked out, the more likely it’s going to return with damage, especially if it’s a book for children. But even if nothing bad happens to those books while they’re checked out, it doesn’t mean that they’ll be in pristine condition after they’ve been checked out 50 times. Oils from our hands will get on the pages, spines can become unglued, chunks of pages can come loose or fall apart for no other reason than the fact that the book’s been used a lot. Then there’s the smell. You know it: the dusty smell of old books. If you love that smell, skip the next paragraph, because I’m about to ruin it for you. 

You know what that smell is? Human skin particles. Gross, but true. 

When I have a “grubby” book in hand, the first thing I do is check its condition. I look for torn pages, markings, damaged spines, stains, liquid damage, and, for some books, see if it passes the literal sniff test. The two grossest things I look for are mold and insects. These are both really bad things to find in a book. Mold doesn’t just present a potential health hazard. It spreads fast and can eat through entire library collections in no time. Get rid of moldy books quickly, before every book around it becomes a moldy book. 

If you find bugs in a book, hopefully they’re already dead. If you decide not to keep the book, then you’ll need to clean up the insect murder scene, make sure there are no survivors, and clean the book. Living bugs are a whole different story. There are plenty of critters who would just love to eat through those tasty, tasty pages. In fact, this is where the term “bookworm” comes from! Just like mold, bugs can literally eat their way through a library. Even insects that don’t eat books can be a problem. I spent way too long cleaning a picture book full of live ants. It was gross, time-consuming, and absolutely necessary. Insect invasions can lead to all kinds of problems for library staff and patrons. Once my library had to close due to wasps in staff areas. Turns out most people do not like their coffee covered in bees.

Determining whether to get rid of a grubby book can be challenging, since they  often become grubby due to popularity. In this case, ordering a new copy is usually the best option. However, this isn’t always possible. Funding to purchase new books might be limited, the book could be out of print, or the book might only be available in a format the library doesn’t want. For example, sometimes old picture books are no longer available in hardcover, and I can only purchase a softcover copy. Paperbacks are more easily damaged than hardcover, thin, softcover picture books can quickly be lost on the shelves between thicker books. When that’s the case, it may be time to say farewell to your much-loved book. 

“Dusty” or “dead” books are the opposite of “grubby” books. These are books that haven’t had a lot of check-outs, or books that haven’t been checked out in a long time. The definition of a “long time” depends on the library, but it’s typically between two to three years. While that’s a helpful guideline to start with, it’s by no means the only thing to take into consideration when deciding to keep or weed a book. 

First of all, low check-outs or no check-outs doesn’t mean that the book isn’t being used. It’s entirely possible that library patrons are looking at the book at the library instead of taking it home. Patrons may be reluctant or embarrassed to check out books about health, sexuality, gender identity, and other sensitive topics. This is especially true when it comes to books for teens, who may not feel safe or comfortable bringing these books home, and may not have access to them at school. 

Another consideration is the number of libraries nearby that have the same title. If a book you’re considering discarding is available in 15 other nearby libraries, you probably don’t need to hang on to it. But if you’re the only library in 30 miles who has this book, you’ll probably want to keep it, even if it doesn’t get a lot of circulation. 

You’ll also want to check the content of the book. If it’s a nonfiction book, it’s important to see how many books on the topic (or a similar one) you have. If it’s children’s nonfiction, you’ll also want to make sure you have books of varying complexity. The book a six-year-old needs to do his homework is going to be very different than the book an eleven-year-old needs, even if it covers the same topic. 

The content of the book also needs to be accurate and relevant. Some topics, like health and technology, change very rapidly, and books in those areas can become obsolete fast.

Content also matters in terms of fiction. For example, if I have to choose between a YA romance and a YA novel about drug abuse, I’m keeping the latter. Romance is always popular, which is why there’s always so much on the shelf. The book about drug abuse is probably not as much fun as a boy-meets-girl story, but it is something that is present in every community and too many families. I have always believed that fiction is a safe way to learn about a tough topic, and I try to keep books that deal with current issues on the shelf. It’s also important to have a diverse collection with books that feature characters with a variety of races, sexualities, backgrounds, and ideas. 

And that, in a nutshell, is weeding. 

Well, sort of. As I said before, deselecting materials should be done on an item-by-item basis. 

 “Grubby” and “dusty” aren’t the only criteria librarians use to decide whether or not to weed an item, but they are a helpful place to start.

Keep calm and weed on. 

by booksoverlookedblog

Banned Books Week 1: Intellectual Freedom

I can only remember my reading choices being called into question three times.

First, when I was in elementary school, my aunt saw me reading some sort of business-type book by Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert. I was skipping the text and reading the comic strips that had been inserted on each page. My aunt laughed and asked if I understood what I was reading. I told her I was only reading the comics. She asked if I understood the comics, which I mostly didn’t, and I told her, “Some of them.”

The second time was probably in the summer of 1997, making me eight years old. I was eagerly reading a Newsweek article about the recently-launched Sojourner Mars rover. My mom asked me if I understood what I was reading. I was an above-average reader for my age, but Newsweek was still beyond me. I had no idea what the article was saying. I lied and told her that I understood it all.

The last time came when I was sixteen or seventeen, and reading The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer. Whenever I set it down, I was very careful to always place it cover side up, lest someone be weirded out by the summary on the back. When I did leave it upside down once, though, my mom read the summary and asked, “What is this book you’re reading?” Considering that the summary talks about opium and a boy being harvested from a cow’s womb, I’m not surprised that it raised a few eyebrows. When I told her it was sci-fi about clones and I also thought it was weird, but good. She just kind of went, “all right then” and didn’t ask again.

But at no point has anyone ever told me, “I don’t like that, so you can’t read it.” No one has ever tried to take a book from me because it was too advanced, or because they were uncomfortable with the subject matter. I got to read whatever I wanted, even if my parents didn’t love all of it. Though my mom might occasionally “check in” if I was reading a book with mature themes, she trusted me to make my own decisions when it came to reading. Some kids aren’t that lucky.

Let’s talk about banned books.

This is the week to do it, after all. Banned Books Week was established in 1982 by the Office of Intellectual Freedom (OIF), a subdivision of the American Library Association (ALA), in response to a sudden uptick in book bans and challenges that year.

Notably, the subject of book bans made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1982, in the case Island Tree Schools School District v. Pico. The school district had removed 11 books from the high school and middle school libraries, which the school board decreed were, “anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Sem[i]tic, and just plain filthy.” A group of five students, led by high school senior Steven Pico, filed suit against the school board. They alleged that removing books from their school violated their First Amendment rights. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that school boards did not have the right to remove books from the school library “simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books and seek by their removal to ‘prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion.'”

Five kids stood up for their intellectual freedom, and they saved their right to information. But book bans and challenges are still happening today, and at an alarming and unprecedented rate.

So I want to dedicate this and the next few posts to Banned Books Week, taking a look at intellectual freedom, and the threats it faces.

But first: What is intellectual freedom?

Librarians don’t take an oath when we graduate,* but if we did, it would probably look like the Library Bill of Rights. To shrink it down into just three main tenets, the Library Bill of Rights says (in brief)

  1. Everyone has a right to information, regardless of their age, sex, race, religion, orientation, gender identity, etc.
  2. Libraries facilitate these rights by providing information from all points of view, and need to challenge censorship or attempts to restrict anyone’s freedom to read and learn.
  3. Everyone has a right to privacy, and libraries need to safeguard the privacy of everyone who uses them.

I could talk about the right to privacy and libraries for a long time, but for this post, I’ll be sticking to those first two tenets. In a nutshell, this is intellectual freedom. Everyone has a right to information from all points of view, without restriction. And it’s not just me saying that. The U.N. agrees.

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Censorship, book bans, and challenges all restrict our human right to information.

I’m going to pre-empt one of the most common (if not the most common) arguments for book challenges and bans: “Think of the children!”

As a youth librarian, I work with all ages of kids, from babies to teenagers. I obviously wouldn’t hand a three-year-old and a thirteen-year-old the same book. Likewise, two kids of the same age can have entirely different reading and maturity levels. A book that’s perfect for one kid might be totally wrong for another. That’s fine – there is no single book that is perfect for every person. Adults can and should provide guidance for kids when it comes to their media consumption, including books.

What shouldn’t be done is deprive others of the opportunity to access those materials. There are plenty of books that I don’t like, and ones that I disagree vehemently with. I choose not to read those books, or to read them with a critical eye. Just because I don’t like Red, White, and Royal Blue doesn’t mean that I can take it away from everyone else who might want to read it.

One more thing that I haven’t addressed yet: the right to receive information from all points of view.

This can be a hard thing when it comes to selecting materials for libraries. For instance, political pundits espouse plenty of opinions I disagree with. Yet they still have fans who want to hear from them, and who will eagerly dive into any book their favorite commentator puts out. Even if it’s misleading or potentially harmful.

At times, this has been really difficult for me. I mostly deal with juvenile and YA fiction, so I don’t have to decide if a book like Why Women Shouldn’t Vote** by John “Women are Intimidated by How Smart I Am” Smith belongs in a library. But I still have to make choices like:

Is this book where the characters appropriate sacred Indigenous practices something we want in our collection?
This books has strong misogynistic content, but the movie is extremely popular and it’s trending on #BookTok. Do we buy it?
The teens really enjoy rom-coms, but this one starts after a girl is kissed by a stranger in the dark. How would that be interpreted by the teens who read it?
This author is a slimeball and criminal, but his books get checked out a lot. Is it okay for me to buy this book and support him financially? Or is it better for me to order it so fewer people need to go out and buy the book?

I have to take all of these questions on a book-by-book basis. I reject many books because I feel that they would not suit our library patron’s needs, and I purchase others that I would never choose for myself because I know the patrons will like them. These are the times that I need to separate my professional ethics from my personal beliefs.

Everyone still has a right to read these books, no matter what your beliefs are. The library’s role is not to sort out what should and shouldn’t be read, but to provide information to those who seek it. Intellectual freedom is a human right, and Banned Books Week is a challenge to anyone who would take away that right.

So crack open The Bluest Eye, pull your copy of Perks of Being a Wallflower off the shelf, and dare to check out Flamer. Let freedom read.

*We do, however, get a cardigan alongside our diploma.
**Not a real book. I hope.